Stamford needs schooling on use of contractors

Updated 11:12 am, Friday, September 11, 2015

Cusodians worked to ready Stillmeadow School for a new school year in this 2012 file photo.

Cusodians worked to ready Stillmeadow School for a new school year in this 2012 file photo.

Photo: Dru Nadler For The Advocate / Hearst Connecticut Media

Stamford needs schooling on use of contractors

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In Stamford, school buildings and grounds are managed by a private contractor.

That contractor, AFB Construction Management, handles any number of subcontractors with little oversight — school administrators have said they do not have time to monitor AFB.

It may not be the best way to conduct the people’s business.

Take the case of Melillo Maintenance, a subcontractor that provides 42 part-time custodians to supplement the school district’s full-time custodial staff.

School administrators took two weeks to answer questions about how, and how much, Melillo is paid, how often the part-time custodians are absent, and why, in July, they all were fingerprinted to comply with state-mandated security checks. Fingerprinting is supposed to be done at the time of hire.

But the questions school officials answered raise more questions.

Start with how much taxpayers shell out for the part-time Melillo custodians, who are assigned to five schools. The exact amount of the bill is an elusive number.

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“At least one or two are out one or two days of every week. The absenteeism is ridiculous. One woman has been a no-call, no-show for a month.”

Scofield Magnet Middle School Head Custodian Mike LeDuc

According to the Board of Education’s “service vendors” account, Melillo was paid $604,856 in 2014-15.

However, school district spokeswoman Sharon Beadle reported a different amount, $601,009, for that year. Beadle was the only one to respond to email inquiries sent to several school officials and AFB chief Al Barbarotta.

There is a third number. At a May 27, 2014, meeting, the school board agreed to pay Melillo $541,632. That’s about $60,000 less than either of the other amounts.

Beadle explained in an email Monday that Melillo doesn’t have a “fixed-price contract.” The 2014-15 payment, for example, included “additional positions to cover for long-term absences” among the full-time custodians.

The school district pays only for the hours the part-timers work, Beadle said. If a part-timer doesn’t show up, Melillo doesn’t get paid.

There’s another snag. If you look for the school board’s contract with Melillo, you won’t find it, at least not technically.

Melillo works for the school district, through AFB, by way of a Request for Proposals, a document contractors submit when they are trying to win work. In an RFP, contractors lay out what services they will provide at what cost, and one is chosen based on that information.

An RFP is not a contract, but apparently can serve as one.

According to the RFP, last year’s $541,632 payment to Melillo increased to $542,942 this year and will increase to $544,242 next year.

But if the agreement is not “fixed,” as Beadle said, why are sums set for each year? What if not enough part-time custodians show up this school year to warrant a payment of $542,942? Does the Board of Education get reimbursed?

Those and other questions, sent to Beadle and Barbarotta Wednesday, were not answered as of press time. Calls to Melillo were not returned.

Among the questions are whether school administrators have attendance records for the part-time custodians, since that dictates whether they are paid. It’s not clear that school administrators are even privy to the attendance records, since the part-timers are employees of Melillo, not the district. And remember that Melillo is managed by AFB, not the district.

Asked who checks how many part-timers show up each day at the five schools — Stamford High, Westhill High, the Academy of Information Technology & Engineering, Scofield Magnet Middle School and Rogers International — Beadle responded that “Facilities (AFB) works directly with the head custodians at each building to determine which part-time custodians reported to work.” Again, no records were provided.

According to Beadle, the absentee rate for part-time custodians during the school year is 8 percent to 10 percent.

It’s a lot higher, McIntosh said.

“All year long we were short on our eight-man part-time crew — two guys (short) every day, if not three. And that’s just at Stamford High,” McIntosh said.

Worse, he was short during the summer, when custodians are busiest, McIntosh said.

“We should’ve had eight part-time workers at 20 hours each, totaling 160 hours each week this summer,” he said. “We had one guy at 35 hours and one guy at 20 hours, totaling 55 hours” each week.

“Plus, many of the part-time workers do not show for work on school holidays because of other work conflicts, because many work day jobs also,” McIntosh said.

Scofield Magnet Middle School Head Custodian Mike LeDuc said his two day-shift part-timers generally come to work, but not the eight assigned to the night shift.

“At least one or two are out one or two days of every week,” said LeDuc, who keeps records. “The absenteeism is ridiculous. One woman has been a no-call, no-show for a month. They just replaced her” Thursday.

Turnover among the part-timers is high, LeDuc said.

“During the summer, only four of the eight night guys were committed to the job. The others disappeared,” LeDuc said. “They send replacements and many times they don’t speak English, so there’s no way to communicate. Or they send a 90-pound woman who can’t lift a barrel to dump the garbage. I have to call downtown and say in the nicest way possible, ‘Please don’t send me someone who can’t do the job. I need people who are able to handle all parts of the job.’

“I think Melillo is just filling slots,” LeDuc said. “There’s not a lot of concern about whether the person can handle the work.”

At the school board’s July 7 meeting, Barbarotta told members the part-time custodians “get the job done.” Asked about it later, Barbarotta wrote in a July 9 email that the part-timers are paid about $14.50 an hour.

“When part-timers don't show up Melillo provides replacements or we don't pay the hours,” Barbarotta wrote.

Asked whether he knew how many hours they work daily, Barbarotta wrote that he knows “exactly,” then stopped responding without providing numbers.

There’s another problem with having a contractor oversee a contractor.

On July 16, Stephany Florian, a customer support specialist for Melillo Maintenance and its sister companies, Premier Maintenance and United Services of America, sent a memo to employees titled “Fingerprinting for Employees at the Stamford Schools.”

Every employee of any of the three companies working in Stamford Public Schools had to be fingerprinted by July 18 “in order to continue employment,” Florian wrote.

They’re supposed to be fingerprinted before they are hired.

When Barbarotta was asked about the background checks in July, he emailed, “We do not keep records for our subcontractors’ employees. When we request background checks, they provide them.”

Asked Monday why school administrators questioned the fingerprinting in July, Beadle said it happened after someone made a complaint about one of the part-timers. Police investigated and were unable to substantiate the complaint, but it prompted a city official to ask Melillo for the security information.

“Melillo couldn’t immediately produce the background checks … so the SPS required the Melillo employees to be rechecked … before they were allowed to return to the schools,” Beadle wrote. “It is my understanding that Melillo performed the required background checks, but was unable to provide the documentation at the time of our request because of their impending office move.”

So school officials rely on a contractor, AFB, who relies on a subcontractor, Melillo, to ensure student safety.

Barbarotta has told The Advocate that he is in Stamford to make money. The same must be assumed for Melillo or any contractor. They are in business.

Why is Stamford comfortable leaving it to businesses to manage the taxpayers’ money and the security of schoolchildren?